Tidy data with tidyr

Day 3 - Introduction to Data Analysis with R

Selina Baldauf

Freie Universität Berlin - Theoretical Ecology

September 29, 2025

What is tidy data?

What is tidy data?

Illustration from the Openscapes blog Tidy Data for reproducibility, efficiency, and collaboration by Julia Lowndes and Allison Horst

What is tidy data?

Let’s look at some examples

Tidy ::: {.cell} ::: {.cell-output-display}

id name color
1 floof gray
2 max black
3 cat orange
4 donut gray
5 merlin black
6 panda calico

:::

Non-tidy ::: {.cell} ::: {.cell-output-display}

floof max cat donut merlin panda
gray black orange gray black calico


::: {.cell} ::: {.cell-output-display}

gray black orange calico
floof max cat panda
donut merlin

::: :::

:::

:::

:::


Sometimes raw data is non-tidy because its structure is optimized for data entry or viewing rather than analysis.

Why tidy data?

The main advantages of tidy data is that the tidyverse packages are built to work with it.

Illustration from the Openscapes blog Tidy Data for reproducibility, efficiency, and collaboration by Julia Lowndes and Allison Horst

Example

Let’s go back to the city data set from earlier:

Expand to reproduce the data 
cities <- c("Istanbul", "Moscow", "London", "Saint Petersburg", "Berlin", "Madrid", "Kyiv", "Rome", "Bucharest", "Paris")
population <- c(15.1e6, 12.5e6, 9e6, 5.4e6, 3.8e6, 3.2e6, 3e6, 2.8e6, 2.2e6, 2.1e6)
area_km2 <- c(2576, 2561, 1572, 1439, 891, 604, 839, 1285, 228, 105)

country <- c(
  "Turkey", "Russia", "UK", "Russia", "Germany", "Spain",
  "Ukraine", "Italy", "Romania", "France"
)
# tidy
cities_tbl <- tibble(
  city_name = cities,
  population_size = population,
  city_area = area_km2,
  country = country
)
cities_tbl
#> # A tibble: 10 × 4
#>    city_name        population_size city_area country
#>    <chr>                      <dbl>     <dbl> <chr>  
#>  1 Istanbul                15100000      2576 Turkey 
#>  2 Moscow                  12500000      2561 Russia 
#>  3 London                   9000000      1572 UK     
#>  4 Saint Petersburg         5400000      1439 Russia 
#>  5 Berlin                   3800000       891 Germany
#>  6 Madrid                   3200000       604 Spain  
#>  7 Kyiv                     3000000       839 Ukraine
#>  8 Rome                     2800000      1285 Italy  
#>  9 Bucharest                2200000       228 Romania
#> 10 Paris                    2100000       105 France

This already looks pretty tidy.

Same data different format

Expand to reproduce the data 
cities_untidy <- unite(cities_tbl, col = "location", c(country, city_name)) |>
  pivot_longer(c(population_size, city_area), names_to = "type") |>
  pivot_wider(names_from = "location", values_from = "value")
cities_untidy
#> # A tibble: 2 × 11
#>   type            Turkey_Istanbul Russia_Moscow UK_London Russia_Saint Petersb…¹
#>   <chr>                     <dbl>         <dbl>     <dbl>                  <dbl>
#> 1 population_size        15100000      12500000   9000000                5400000
#> 2 city_area                  2576          2561      1572                   1439
#>   Germany_Berlin Spain_Madrid Ukraine_Kyiv Italy_Rome Romania_Bucharest
#>            <dbl>        <dbl>        <dbl>      <dbl>             <dbl>
#> 1        3800000      3200000      3000000    2800000           2200000
#> 2            891          604          839       1285               228
#> # ℹ abbreviated name: ¹​`Russia_Saint Petersburg`
#> # ℹ 1 more variable: France_Paris <dbl>

What’s not tidy here?

  • Each row has multiple observation
  • At the same time, each observation is split across multiple rows
  • Country and city variable are split into multiple columns
  • Country and city variable values are united to one value

The tidyr pacakge

Let’s tidy this data using functions from the tidyr package!

First load the package with either

library(tidyr)

or

library(tidyverse)

pivot_longer()

One variable split into multiple columns can be solved with pivot_longer

#> # A tibble: 2 × 11
#>   type            Turkey_Istanbul Russia_Moscow UK_London Russia_Saint Petersb…¹
#>   <chr>                     <dbl>         <dbl>     <dbl>                  <dbl>
#> 1 population_size        15100000      12500000   9000000                5400000
#> 2 city_area                  2576          2561      1572                   1439
#>   Germany_Berlin Spain_Madrid Ukraine_Kyiv Italy_Rome Romania_Bucharest
#>            <dbl>        <dbl>        <dbl>      <dbl>             <dbl>
#> 1        3800000      3200000      3000000    2800000           2200000
#> 2            891          604          839       1285               228
#> # ℹ abbreviated name: ¹​`Russia_Saint Petersburg`
#> # ℹ 1 more variable: France_Paris <dbl>

pivot_longer()

One variable split into multiple columns can be solved with pivot_longer

step1 <- pivot_longer(
  cities_untidy, # the tibble
  cols = Turkey_Istanbul:France_Paris, # the columns to pivot from:to
  names_to = "location", # name of the new column
  values_to = "value"
) # name of the value column
#> # A tibble: 20 × 3
#>   type            location                   value
#>   <chr>           <chr>                      <dbl>
#> 1 population_size Turkey_Istanbul         15100000
#> 2 population_size Russia_Moscow           12500000
#> 3 population_size UK_London                9000000
#> 4 population_size Russia_Saint Petersburg  5400000
#> # ℹ 16 more rows

pivot_longer()

One variable split into multiple columns can be solved with pivot_longer

step1 <- pivot_longer(
  cities_untidy, # the tibble
  cols = Turkey_Istanbul:France_Paris, # the columns to pivot from:to
  names_to = "location", # name of the new column
  values_to = "value"
) # name of the value column

Another way to select the columns to pivot:

step1 <- pivot_longer(
  cities_untidy, # the tibble
  cols = !type, # All columns except type#<<
  names_to = "location", # name of the new column
  values_to = "value"
) # name of the value column

separate_wider_delim()

Multiple variable values that are united into one can be separated using separate_wider_delim

#> # A tibble: 20 × 3
#>   type            location           value
#>   <chr>           <chr>              <dbl>
#> 1 population_size Turkey_Istanbul 15100000
#> 2 population_size Russia_Moscow   12500000
#> # ℹ 18 more rows
step2 <- separate_wider_delim(
  step1, # the tibble
  location, # the column to separate
  delim = "_", # the separator
  names = c("country", "city_name")
) # names of new columns
#> # A tibble: 20 × 4
#>   type            country city_name    value
#>   <chr>           <chr>   <chr>        <dbl>
#> 1 population_size Turkey  Istanbul  15100000
#> 2 population_size Russia  Moscow    12500000
#> # ℹ 18 more rows

The opposite function exists as well and is called unite. Check out ?unite for details.

pivot_wider()

One observation split into multiple rows can solved with pivot_wider

#> # A tibble: 20 × 4
#>   type            country city_name    value
#>   <chr>           <chr>   <chr>        <dbl>
#> 1 population_size Turkey  Istanbul  15100000
#> 2 population_size Russia  Moscow    12500000
#> # ℹ 18 more rows
step3 <- pivot_wider(
  step2, # the tibble
  names_from = type, # the variables
  values_from = value
) # the values
#> # A tibble: 10 × 4
#>   country city_name        population_size city_area
#>   <chr>   <chr>                      <dbl>     <dbl>
#> 1 Turkey  Istanbul                15100000      2576
#> 2 Russia  Moscow                  12500000      2561
#> 3 UK      London                   9000000      1572
#> 4 Russia  Saint Petersburg         5400000      1439
#> 5 Germany Berlin                   3800000       891
#> # ℹ 5 more rows

All steps in 1

We can also use a pipe to do all these steps in one:

cities_tidy <- cities_untidy |>
  pivot_longer(
    Turkey_Istanbul:France_Paris,
    names_to = "location",
    values_to = "values"
  ) |>
  separate_wider_delim(
    location,
    delim = "_",
    names = c("country", "city_name")
  ) |>
  pivot_wider(
    names_from = type,
    values_from = values
  )

Remove missing values with drop_na()

Drop rows with missing values:

# drop rows with missing values in any column
drop_na(and_vertebrates)
# drop rows with missing values in weight column
drop_na(and_vertebrates, weight_g)
# drop rows with missing values in weight and species columns
drop_na(and_vertebrates, weight_g, species)

This is an easier and more intuitive alternative to filter(!is.na(...)).

Now you

Task (30 min)

Tidy data with tidyr

Find the task description here